The years of oppression of a female entrepreneur — a story of fashion art, passion, bureaucracy and struggle
The years of oppression of a female entrepreneur — a story of fashion art, passion, bureaucracy and struggle.
In this article, I will delve into the challenges that the creative industry in Finland has and has had for a long time and why and how has the potential of creativity been wasted in Finland?
Why does this affect the whole of Finland?
Small creative businesses are part of the national economy, employers and export potential. When we fail to support soft technology, female entrepreneurs and small businesses, we lose future export successes, cultural identity and jobs. It is a waste of the national economy. My story is not an isolated case — it is a flaw in the system that needs to be fixed.
Especially women's creativity and innovations related to handicrafts and clothing have been invisible, insignificant and perceived as mere tinkering without credibility.
I have experienced the dark sides of the industry in my career as a design entrepreneur. While I try to find out the root causes, I also try to find ways to solve the problems. This can be beneficial for the entire creative industry, so that we no longer waste our creative potential, but harness it to benefit our struggling economy.
Here is my story and experiences
Born an artist
I decided at the age of 15 that I would become a fashion designer. I got the male perspective on the matter right away when the career counselors laughed and dismissed the whole idea as too difficult by suggesting that “You girl, just become a nurse.” So I became a “fashion nurse.” I was born an artist. The career counselors did not understand this. I also realized early on that the world is not the same for girls and boys.
A dream that could not be laughed away
I did not give up. When I graduated from high school, I packed up my dream and went to London. I worked hard to get into Art School by completing the required qualifications at the University of London and Hammersmith College. I financed my studies by working as a waitress at the Garrick Theatre in Leicester Square and the Cafe de Paris in Piccadilly at weekends, as a cashier at Wimpy in Fleet Street at lunchtime and also as a photo model at a modeling agency. In the evenings I studied at Central St. Martin's preparatory evening school. Eventually I was accepted to study at the world's top school, Central St. Martin's College of Art. After five years I graduated with top grades. The education culminated in me being seen as a fashion artist. I returned to Finland with a head full of dreams: to put Finnish fashion on the world map
The culture shock of an immigrant
After a long and expensive education, a large student loan to pay off and faith in my own skills, I returned to Finland. Here reality hit me in the face. The employment agency classified me as unskilled because my certificate was in English. For three years I was unemployed, doing odd jobs and struggling on the basic daily allowance. I understood that I would never get a job in the clothing industry through the employment agency. So I decided to start compiling a portfolio, I got a knitting machine sponsored for myself for that. I designed designs for magazines and spinning mills. Eventually I got jobs in the clothing industry, but the punishment for self-employment was that the Employment Agency collected the few teuros that my operation had exceeded the allowed earnings limit. 20 years, because I refused to pay for the work that I had done for the Employment Agency myself. In the end, I had to bow to the bureaucracy. Activities promoting employment were interpreted as working against oneself.
#metoo Industry
As an industrial designer, I was able to fulfill myself and take my fashion to the world.My fashion was sold in Sweden, Russia and department stores in Finland, among others. My first fashion show was in St. Petersburg. I got to create collections with Gudrun Sjöden and I got to go to Paris Fashion Week. However, the cold truth was eventually revealed: I was young and beautiful and I had been hired primarily as a manager's concubine or entertainer. My creativity and skills had little weight. I had only been used for profit. I had to get away from such a toxic atmosphere.
Why did I become an entrepreneur?
Jobs in the clothing industry were disappearing in the wake of cheap imports. When I worked in industry, I had experienced sexual harassment. I felt that as an entrepreneur I could be free from it, protect my creativity, maintain my dignity and do my work on my own terms.
I jwas not prepared for discrimination and harassment to change their form. At the same time, the entire clothing industry in Finland was being shut down and I realized that there would be no more jobs. So I decided to become a design entrepreneur so that I could make my dream come true. I completed the Design Entrepreneur course at the University of Art and Design. I also trained there in other necessary skills, including digital skills.
Donna Quijote's Battle Against Windmills Began
I started with start-up money. I got a Passap knitting machine and an industrial hem stitcher on installments. First I made children's knitwear. Then I started making women's knitwear. I created the Finnish knitting tradition, NeuleKalevala.
Gradually, the artisanal production grew, I had 2 employees and 8 subcontractors, sales representatives in Finland, an agent in Japan, Switzerland, China and the Netherlands. I went to sell my collections myself in Germany and Sweden. I did all the internationalization on my own, I have not received any corporate support or grants to date despite numerous attempts. How good do you have to be to be good enough?
The potential of creativity has been wasted in Finland
The truth is that Finland is too small a market for niche fashion, let alone other creative innovations, so it needs to be brought to larger markets where niche can be a big deal. The reputation of Finnish Design still lives on in the world, but not in Finland. Except Alwar Aalto. But we cannot live forever lingering for the good old days.
A professor specializing in Finnish Design at the University of Montana, after seeing my work, announced that I would create the next Marimekko in Finland. How did that happen?
England, Sweden or the USA are model examples of recognizing creativity and utilizing it successfully. Finland has not succeeded in that. My experiences with growth and internationalization goals in the creative industry are a harsh tale.
Project experiences
Since my own resources as a small entrepreneur have been limited, I have tried to get help from various export projects and creative industry projects. What started as a passion turned into a constant struggle against bureaucracy, poorly managed projects and attitudes.
The Finnish Foreign Trade Association’s export promotion trips to Germany and Norway were anything but attempts to achieve exports. They were mostly pub and beer hall tours. In my experience, the purpose was not to get entrepreneurs to export, but to employ a consultant.
Aalto University Design and IInformations Technology and Internationalization of Design Company training courses went on for 4 years, without any results. These Aalto Finnish Design export projects collapsed due to the incompetence of the leaders. In these projects, we went to, among other things, the Frankfurt Fair, where they had forgotten to send out invitations. We were surprised when no one came to the stand! The big idea was to establish a Finnish design business in Estonia!
Instead of a design fair, we ended up in Italy, among chickens, at an agricultural fair. And many other unpleasant experiences that are very difficult to even write about.
In Frankfurt, we were offered help by an admirer of Finnish design of the BEDG agency, who was there to export products by designers from the Royal College to the world. They didn't want her here. I tried for a long time together with the Kuopio Academy of Design to get her to Finland, but the only feedback was that we in Finland ourselves know how to export design! We haven't to this day!
The agency also wanted to take me to Paris Fashion Week privately, but we couldn't get funding for that.
Scam consultants and agents
The Finnish Foreign Trade Association recruited agents for us from Germany, who turned out to be scammers. In the end, the products had to be retrieved from Germany; they were found in the agent's garage. They had only financed themselves by promising to take our collection to industry fairs. There was no proof of this.
Another example is the Finnish Design in UK export project funded by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, in which I was accompanied by well-known fashion artists. It was started by a consultant who was already on the blacklist, but it still received funding. The project ended up in a scrap heap because its leaders were scammers and took our designers' money with them.
I was an invited guest at the Business Finland founding event at Finlandia Hall. There, the so-called consultant problem was brought up and it was promised to be eradicated. Somewhere, the problem still exists, because the national potential of the creative industry has been wasted time and time again. I feel that a lot of time and money has been wasted on projects that are not intended to create export to creative industries to Finland, but only to provide project funding for consultants.
More stumbling blocks – ELY discrimination
The projects promised that ELY would provide internationalization support for growth. The truth is completely different. Whenever my company has had an international breakthrough opportunity, I have asked for help from ELY. Seven times in fact! I have had an analysis done by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Tourism, which shows that my innovations and concepts have great export potential. But when it comes down to it, that has not been the case.
Here are a couple of examples:
I got a good agent in Japan, who took Annikki Karvin there, among others. After a successful year-long test marketing, the agent announced that production had to be increased significantly. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Tourism did not help, and we did not receive any growth funding from them or anywhere else.
Or: I received a large order of €40,000 from Germany and asked the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Tourism to help finance its production. I did not get any working capital from there or anywhere else.
I was also led to the Ministry of Economic Development, Transport and the Environment by people who believed in me and asked to help “this talented designer”, but no mercy. The Ministry of Economic Development, Transport and the Environment was very good at discouraging people like this: “there is no future there” or “we don’t help small fashion entrepreneurs here”.
In the end, I was scolded for asking for help there and they called me back to tell me that it was no longer worth coming to ask for it. It also happened that internationalization support in various projects was granted to male entrepreneurs, but not to us female entrepreneurs.
Rules as an obstacle to growth
Finnish support systems are structured in a way that often excludes small, female-led micro-enterprises. Trade fair and exhibition support was only granted if four companies participated — except for painters. I have been invited alone to Paris, Shanghai, and New York fashion weeks, as well as to many other countries, but I do not receive support. Now even trade fair support has been modified or removed in 2026, and small brands will lose this opportunity as well. A micro-enterprise is defined as less than 2 million euros — but women’s small businesses do not have sufficient start-up capital to receive funding. A small, 10 000 € internationalization grant would work wonders. As a fashion artist, I have not been eligible for this support anyway, because I have been sole invited to Paris Fashion Week, New York Fashion Week, Switzerland, Estonia, China, the USA. This invitation support should be extended to artists other than painters as well.
Solo export
I decided to take the reins of export into my own hands. All the exports I have had have been self-acquired. I have taken products and collections to Germany, Sweden and the USA. Business Finland's Finnish Design in Asia project dried up before any exports were achieved. I finally organised test marketing myself in Shanghai and recruited a good agent from Shanghai who brought European handmade luxury to China. She started marketing my products and invited me to Shanghai Fashion Week, but I couldn't go because there were no other three participants. An agent cannot be forced to invite other unknown companies just because the rules require it.
Wearable art
Wearable art is highly valued around the world. In Germany, individual fashion is sought after. In France and Italy, fashion art is Haute Couture, which is supported by the state because it creates trends that, like locomotives, pull the entire clothing industry along with it.
In Finland, the whole concept is unknown.
In the USA, fashion art is a concept. My fashion art was invited to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Craft Finnish Design theme exhibition with a few other Finnish designers. The Museum of Applied Arts acted as curator and organizer. We were treated as stars there and a Finnish Design Gala was organized in our honor. Ambassador Valtasaari told me that if you have made it here, you can make it anywhere. I haven’t.
The US experience gave me hope
The encouragement has come through female friends and some private individuals who have recognized the special nature of my art. One of them, an international performer, Celia Fenn from Cape Town, organized a small exhibition for me in Norway and then in New York for her own event. It piqued my interest and led to an invitation to the Fashion Institute of Technology, where I lectured on NeuleKalevala the following year. After that, I appeared on the Reach for it radio program on Denver’s BSS radio station. I was also featured on Michigan’s Amazing People program and later my fashion received extensive column space in Enchanted Living Magazine.
Now I have been invited to World Fashion Week in Paris and New York Fashion Week to create a Finnish export event — but funding is still lacking. The New York event is produced by Nordic Artists of New York and the theme is Kalevala in New York. I myself produce my artistic show and the Finnish Culture Showroom presenting Finnish cultural design. The work is also planned to be presented in Los Angeles and at other Finnish fashion export promotion events around the world.
Help from other Funding sources?
Since the Ministry of Economic Development and Transport refused to support my growth and internationalization, I have been trying to get grants and crowdfunding for this and other projects for years. It has been extremely frustrating and fruitless. Filling out application forms is not a creative person's area of expertise. You would need an expert to make the applications, but it costs money. If there is no money, there will be no money.
Women's creativity on display
This is not just my story. It is a story about how bureaucracy, poorly planned projects, gender bias and short-sighted funding practices can stifle talent. In practice, it is largely about the lack of appreciation of women's creativity, the differential assessment of the right, creative and left hemispheres of the brain, logic. We do not listen to women in the same way as men. The world changes when women and women's creativity begin to be valued. Women must also begin to value other women, not just men.
Ways and suggestions
I believe in Finnish creativity. We have cultural fashion and expertise that could be hard currency in the world. But if we do not learn to support small, especially female entrepreneurs, we will lose the opportunity to strengthen the entire national economy, produce exports and jobs. I believe that our top expertise in sustainable and organic fashion is our new precious export product.
But it requires a new way of thinking: targeted, easily accessible growth financing for micro-enterprises in women's sectors; simplified grant applications and support for the application process; honest and responsible export projects, where consultants act in the interests of entrepreneurs; and active monitoring of equality in funding decisions.
What is needed now?
A support portal where you can get practical help with problems and advice on running a business
Targeted financing for micro-enterprises and women entrepreneurs (small internationalization funding back in use).
Easy-to-use grant and application processes and support for application skills.
Country brand export projects that put their own cultural knowledge first.
Gender neutrality and active monitoring of equality in funding.
Call to funders and supporters: If you are a foundation, investor or decision-maker, you are helping more than just one person: you are helping a small business, export potential and Finnish culture. We need partners who dare to invest in a small but impactful brand — funding to scale production, grants for internationalization and resources to prepare applications.
But it requires a new kind of thinking: targeted, easily accessible growth financing for micro-enterprises in women's sectors.
The Americans have christened me the Good Fairy of Finland. But who will help the Fairy to be that fairy?
Comments